Saturday, January 31, 2009

Plans

It doesn't really matter if the plan never actually happens ... it doesn't even have to get close to happeninimeg. I just have to have a plan. Have. To.

So, mirroring the list in the last post I now have a contingency plan for every situation. Go me.

1. Nothing changes, he deploys, and I stay here.2. He goes to Riley and I go with him with all of our stuff. Because he'll be sent to Benning right after he gets back and because the time we get out Riley is just about the time a certain friend will be moving there with her husband I'll probably just head there and set up shop. Misery loves company.3. We all get moved to Fort Benning for an undetermined length of time while he finishes an undetermined number of schools. Then we tackle the Kansas issue. After the Kansas issue I'm basically a vagabond -- Benning is done, Lewis is in the past and there is no way I'm going to want to stay in Kansas. In this scenario ...? I'm really starting to think seriously again about going back to D.C.

I know, I know. Not that long ago I blogged about my monumental moment and how, it turns out, I do not NEED to go back to D.C. to be happy and that it is not where I currently belong. I concluded that I belong here at Lewis.

All of those things remain true. But if our time at Lewis is over I won't belong here then either ... it, too, will be in the past. Just like my former life in D.C.

While thinking about this today it dawned on me that perhaps I had to have this moment to ever be able to move on from anything -- not so much to close the D.C. door forever.

There would be a few things that would have to happen for me to move back:

- The right circumstances regarding Luke and the Army- I would have to feel like it was for sure the right thing to do, not just something I felt like doing, or something comfortable- I would have to do have something to DO there. I'm not thinking in terms of employment, since between Luke not being here using his salary and the incredibly large amount of living allowance the Army gives for the D.C. metro area we'd still be putting savings in the bank even with me living in Northern Virginia (where I'd probably settle given the scant apartment situation on the Hill). I'm thinking in terms of a service purpose. I would want a likely church related project to devote myself to on as close to a full time volunteer basis as is practical with a baby.

And that's about it.

But maybe I won't have to go anywhere. Maybe I can just carry on as I have been, living the cozy life here doing what is familiar even with the husband far, far away.

(I never thought I'd call having the husband far, far away and living here as a single mom the "cozy thing." Life is some kind of crazy).

2 comments:

1. I thought the great thing about the Army was that it's easy to find 50 strong men to move your couch. 2. Kansas actually strikes me as a great place to write a novel. That's because it's a very... uh... contempletive (translated from the Greek "boring") environment. I'm just saying there can be a silver lining to some of these clouds. :-)